Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

How are God and Truth Related?

By my count, there are five different ways to think about the relation of God and truth:

1) There is truth, but there is no God.

2) There is truth, and there is God, but God is not the ontological ground of truth.

3) There is truth, there is God, and truth ultimately depends on the existence of God. There is truth only because there is God.

4) There is no truth, because there is no God.

5) There is God, but no truth.

Ad (1). This I would guess is the view of  many if not most today. There are truths, and among these truths is the truth that God does not exist.  This, I take it, is the standard atheist view.

Ad (2). This, I take it, would be the standard theist view among analytic philosophers.  Consider a philosopher who holds that God is a necessary being and also holds that it is necessarily the case that there are some truths, but would deny the truth of the subjunctive conditional, If, per impossibile, God were not to exist, then truths would not exist either. 

Ad (3). This is the view that I am inclined to accept.  Thus I would affirm the subjunctive conditional lately mentioned. The difference between (2) and (3) is subtle. On both sides it is held that both God and truths are necessary, but the Augustinian — to give him a name — holds that God is the ultimate  'source' of all truth and thus of all intelligibility, or, if you prefer, the ultimate 'ground' of all truth and intelligibility.

Ad (4). This is Nietzsche's view.  Tod Gottes = Tod der Wahrheit.

Ad (5). I have the impression that certain post-Nietzschean POMO-heads hold this. It is a view not worth discussing.

I should think only the first three views have any merit.  

Each of the three has difficulties and none of the three can be strictly proven.

I will mention quickly a problem for the admittedly plausible first view.  

Among the truths there are necessary truths such as the laws of logic. Now a truth is a true truth-bearer, a true proposition, say. Nothing can have a property unless it exists. (Call this principle Anti-Meinong). So no proposition can have the property of being true unless the proposition exists. A necessary truth is true in every metaphysically possible world. It follows that a necessarily true proposition exists in every possible world including worlds in which there are no finite minds.  But a proposition is a thought-accusative that cannot exist except in, or for, a mind.  If there is no God, or rather, if there is no necessarily existent mind, every mind is contingent. A contradiction ensues: there is a world W such that, in W, there exists a thought-accusative that is not the thought-accusative of any mind.

Here are some ways an atheist might 'solve' the problem:

a) Deny that there are necessary truths.

b) Deny that truth is any sense a property of propositions.

c) Deny Anti-Meinong.

d) Deny that propositions are thought-accusatives; accept some sort of Platonism about propositions.

But each of these denials involves problems of its own which I would have no trouble unpacking.

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Bill Vallicella

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7 responses to “How are God and Truth Related?”

  1. John Avatar
    John

    Hi Bill,
    Thanks for this enlightening post. I am hoping you’d be willing to go over the problems that arise by denying that propositions are thought-accusatives. If I’m not mistaken, the major competing views on the metaphysics of propositions these days are essentially Platonist in the sense that they do not believe propositions depend on minds for their existence. I have in mind, on the one hand, Lewisian views according to which propositions are sets of possible worlds and, on the other hand, so-called ‘structural proposition’ views that purport to derive from Russell. I myself think that there are problems with both views, but do not find myself persuaded to believe as a result that propositions depend on minds. So I would find it beneficial if you could sketch the problems with Platonism about propositions. Thanks!

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  2. BV Avatar
    BV

    You’re welcome, John. I’d like to discuss this with you in a separate post.
    For now I will just say two things. First, while I can understand how a proposition could be modeled as a set, or represented as a set, I don’t think it makes sense to say that a proposition IS a set.
    If propositions are sets, then some sets have truth-values. But no set has a truth-value. Ergo, etc.
    I distinguish between ‘Fregean’ and ‘Russellian’ propositions. The proposition expressed by a tokening of ‘Socrates is wise’ does not, on the Fregean or abstract view, have Socrates himself as a constituent whereas on the Russellian view it does.
    Do you accept this distinction or a reasonable facsimile thereof?

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  3. John Avatar
    John

    Hi Bill,
    As I said, I reject both of the views of propositions I mentioned briefly in my original comment. Your objection to the view that propositions are sets strikes me as reasonable. There are other objections as well. As I recall, Trenton Merricks does a nice job of arguing against this view in his book, Propositions (OUP 2015).
    I do accept your distinction between Fregean and Russellian propositions. I don’t accept the Russelian view of propositions, though. So I suppose I am therefore inclined to prefer the Fregean view. Would you agree that this Fregean view is ‘Platonist’ in the sense that it does not take propositions to depend for their existence on minds? Or, perhaps less tendentiously, would you agree that most advocates of a Fregean view today take that view to be Platonist in the above sense?

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  4. BV Avatar
    BV

    John,
    I would say that for a theory of propositions to be ‘platonist,’ it would have to maintain both that (i) propositions are ‘abstract,’ i.e., not in space or time, and (ii) not dependent for their existence on any mind, finite or infinite. On this use of terms, Russellian propositions are not ‘platonic’ because not abstract even though they do exist mind-independently.
    Would you agree that on any acceptable theory, a proposition is a truth-bearer? And that there are two truth values, at least, and that contingent propositions are possibly such that they are false, if true, and possibly such that they are true, if false?
    It could be argued on that basis that neither sets not Russellian ‘propositions’ are propositions.

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  5. John Avatar
    John

    Hi Bill,
    That seems a reasonable enough account of what makes a theory of propositions ‘Platonist’. Unless I’m mistaken, then, that makes the Fregean view Platonist. Is that right?
    I agree with everything you say about what is minimally true of a proposition: that it is a truth-bearer, and that there are (at least) two truth values, such that contingent propositions have the features you say.
    What I am interested in, however, is not whether Russellian propositions really count as propositions, but specifically what you mentioned in your original post: that accepting “some form of Platonism about propositions” “involves problems of its own”. Your last comment suggests that you did not have Russellian views in mind when you made that comment, but that you nevertheless think Russellian views are to be rejected. That’s fine. I agree with you that Russellian views are to be rejected.
    What I am therefore interested to know is this: which Platonist theories of propositions did you have in mind in your original post, and what are the problems involved in accepting such views?

    Reply
  6. BV Avatar
    BV

    Hi John,
    I think everyone would agree that the Fregean view of propositions is broadly ‘platonist.’ For Frege, a proposition (Gedanke) is the sense (Sinn) of a declarative sentence (Satz) from which all indexical elements including tenses of verbs have been extruded. Senses are ‘third world entities’ in Popper’s world-3 sense.
    But I don’t want to take on board everything that Frege says about Gedanken. For one thing, if they are senses, then they are modes of presentation (Darstellungsweisen). But of what? Not of facts or states of affairs, but of The True!(das Wahre). I don’t know about that.
    So in my mouth, ‘Fregean’ means Frege-like and does not commit me to all the details of Frege’s actual view.
    >>What I am therefore interested to know is this: which Platonist theories of propositions did you have in mind in your original post, and what are the problems involved in accepting such views?<< I will try to answer this in a separate post and I will be interested in what you think.

    Reply
  7. John Avatar
    John

    Hi Bill,
    Fair enough (regarding your claim that when you speak of ‘Fregean propositions’ you mean “Frege-like”, and do not mean to commit yourself to all the details of Frege’s actual view).
    I look forward to reading your post on the problems with Platonism about propositions!

    Reply

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